


Nyctophilia

by orphan_account



Series: the beautiful and the profound (words) [5]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Blue haired josh, Depression, Drowning, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, NO ONE DIES I PROMISE IT HAS A NICE ENDING, Party, Sickfic, Suicide Attempt, josh saves tyler in more ways than one, tyler is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 23:04:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9791114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: (n.) a love of darkness or night, finding relaxation or comfort in the darkness.Josh has split knuckles and a nose ring.Tyler has crooked teeth and calloused hands.





	

Everything is bleary and tinted a greenish blue, shapes distorting as his vision focuses on the ugly blue mosaic of a dolphin below him. He feels light and heavy at the same time, the tug of his mind in on itself and the push pull of water resistance and gravity keeping him bobbing along upside down on the surface.

He can hear the blurred sound of music coming from where the party is happening inside the house. He thinks he recognises it as Heroes by David Bowie and he can’t help but think about the poetic irony of it all. Lungs hot and bursting he rolls himself over, his clothes heavily slapping into his stomach as he floats on his back, fingers making ripples as he wiggles them.

He stares at the moon and wonders if it knows, knows that melancholic sense of doom he feels so deep inside his soul, Bowie is fading out and Tyler decides he should too, it seems right, his wet eyes are sore and he lets them flutter shut.

A deep breath through his nose and over the lapping of water in his ears he hears the Smith's There Is a Light and It Never Goes Out and his lips twitch into a hint of a smile.

Then he's sinking, his brain supplying the lyrics for him now he can't actually hear more than a muffled beat, echoing Morrissey’s words and Tyler sinks and sinks and he doesn't think anymore, he's finally free from the constant noise that fills his mind, its blank and he’s at peace, its euphoric.

His eyes are half open, staring at the never-ending blue around him, its slowly disappearing and his eyes are closing and then there’s a heavy weight crashing into the water behind him, he doesn’t move. His body is a lead weight and he’s so tired he can’t bring himself to move it, he’s ready to sleep now. 

But strong hands are on his shoulder, his face and there's lips on his forcing air into his lungs that burns and makes him want to scream but instead his eyes simply open wide and his lips are moving and the stranger pulls away and Tyler follows the pressure seeking for more but the strong hands are pulling him up up up dragging his consciousness back in to the mould of his body again and suddenly he’s hit by cold refreshing air. He’s wide awake now, gasping and choking, spluttering out water and the strong hands are a strong body, a wall that Tyler is draped over, pulling him through the suddenly thick like syrup water and up onto the pool edge.

Tyler lies on the concrete, still coughing, and he thinks he can hear Feel Good Inc. blasting through the speakers, this isn’t poetic it’s just ironic because right now he feels anything but good.

There’s another cough and then a body hanging over his and Tyler can’t help but shuffle closer desperate to leach the warmth quite literally dripping off it.

"What," a cough. "the heck were you doing?!" another cough and an incredulous look.

Tyler looks at their face now, messy curls falling over their forehead, broad nose, wide hazel eyes and perfect teeth and Tyler thinks they're an angel, but angels don't wear x files t shirts and docs.

Groaning, his head feels like it’s being repeatedly pummelled by a sledgehammer, Tyler looks away from the beautiful stranger.

"Jus' wanted 'em to stop." He mumbles everything is too loud, too much. He can't even tell what song is playing now and he’s back to feeling his body like lead, eyes shutting.

Strong warm hands are manhandling him now, pulling him up into a warm chest and despite everything Tyler settles in closer.

"Don't even know your name." He tries to laugh but he’s a slurred mess.

"Josh." The angel replies, and Tyler has to remind himself that Josh isn’t an angel.

Josh has split knuckles and a nose ring. 

Tyler has crooked teeth and calloused fingers.

Josh carries him around the side of the house, as though avoiding the party altogether, Tyler wants to protest but Crazy in Love is blaring loudly and he realises he just wants to go home.

"Are you kidnapping me?" He doesn't open his eyes, only clutches tightly to Josh, fingers balled in his shirt because everything feels like its spinning and he keeps dropping from a great height only to tip over again, he keeps flinching and clenching in Josh's arms and Josh holds him tighter. 

"No. I'm taking you to hospital." Josh says slightly out of breath, he's slowing down now and Tyler opens his eyes.

"Why?"

"Tyler, you nearly drowned. Plus I think you might have hypothermia your lips are blue." Josh expertly manages to grab his car keys from his pocket and unlock the door while pressing Tyler between the car and his chest. He places Tyler in the passenger seat, buckles him up and shuts the door before getting in the driver’s side.  
Tyler is violently shivering and the faint sound of transatlanticism plays over the loud whurr of the car driving through the night.

"How do you know my name?" He asks, teeth chattering and gnashing horribly, folding himself into a ball as his damp clothes cling to him. His skin feels rubbery and itchy and he wants to just unzip his skin and step out of it, a skeleton inside a shell of a person, maybe then he could start a fire with the discarded flesh, burn his vessel up to keep himself warm. Instead he flexes icy cold shaking fingers desperately ignoring the way they’re so cold they're starting to burn anyway. close enough.

"You're kinda a big deal with like everyone dude." 

If Tyler could get enough heat into his face, he would most likely blush at the comment, instead he just grunts and curls further in on himself. Josh hums along to the stereo, eyes on the road but he starts reaching blindly on the floor behind his seat, pulling out a pale blue hoodie, its crinkled and it smells like dirt and Josh and faintly like the pine scented air freshener hanging from his rear-view mirror. He drapes it over Tyler.

They arrived at the hospital, still wet, Tyler shivering violently in Josh’s arms. A disgruntled nurse stops dead in her tracks a frazzled wide-eyed stare fixed on the two teenagers. 

“What happened?” She glances from shaking brunette in Josh’s arms to the cuts and bruises on Josh’s hands, trying to piece together some kind of story.

“He fell in our friends swimming pool and nearly drowned, I think he has hypothermia or something?” Josh replied, chest tight, fighting through the anxiety that’s making his arms shake.

“How long has he been in these clothes, they won’t have helped.” She says heading towards the desk and picking up a phone. 

“Uh- ten minutes maybe, maybe more, I-uh” he shifts Tyler in his arms before he can slip, “I don’t know how long we were driving.”

The nurse nods before speaking into the phone. 

“Josh?” The voice is so small Josh almost misses it but he catches the way cold bony fingers dig into his shoulder and he looks down at Tyler, he looks pale and his lips are a bruised shade of blue and Josh suddenly realises he feels an intense desire to keep him safe from the world, to keep him all for himself, no one else can be trusted with him. 

“Yeah?”

“’mscared.” He clings desperately at Josh’s shoulders and Josh feels his chest ache in a way that for maybe the first time ever is not anxiety, but something else he can’t quite place. 

“It’s okay, you’re gonna be fine I promise.” Josh whispers back and then Tyler is being carted away and Josh is told to organise getting him some clean clothes and maybe Tyler too. 

“I-I don’t know his family, you’ll need to call them.” He says and the nurse nods, taking Tyler’s name from Josh and pulls up his emergency contacts.  
Josh’s sister arrives the same time a tired looking Blonde woman with two kids in toe does, she charges straight for the desk, her winter coat a stark contrast to the tracksuit pants she’s wearing, obviously rushing out of bed to get the hospital, the kids behind her look tired too, dressed in a similar thrown together mismatch of coats and boots and joggers. 

“I’m Kelly Joseph, my son was brought in, Tyler Joseph.” Someone explains what’s happened and Josh’s sister waves in his face because he’s staring at the two kids who look so much like their brother. 

He mumbles a ‘sorry’ to his sister before he is walking over to the woman, who’s huffing down into her seat, telling her kids to sit too. 

“Mrs. Joseph?” Josh hesitates, maybe he shouldn’t do this.

“Yes?” She looks up from her kids and takes in the half damp boy before her, a wave of understanding crossing her face. 

“I’m Josh, I brought Tyler in.” Josh supplies like Kelly hadn’t already pieced it together. 

“Oh thank you.” Kelly says hugging Josh, he grimaces at the way his damp clothes press into his skin, burning almost. 

Josh explains that he found Tyler in the pool and pulled him out and brought him straight to hospital, same story he gave the nurse. He doesn’t mention what Tyler said after he pulled him out, he doesn’t mention that he’d been watching Tyler float in the pool for a while from the upstairs window, doesn’t explain that he’d known what Tyler had really been doing. 

Josh’s sister forces him to change then, forces him to drink a cup of coffee after he refuses to take a nap. Then a doctor is entering the waiting room and telling Kelly that Tyler will be fine he just needs to stay in overnight for observation. It’s another twenty minutes before Kelly is approaching Josh, telling him that he can go see Tyler for a few minutes before he should go home. 

Tyler’s sitting up in the hospital bed, already his lips are redder, his cheeks pinker, there’s still bags under his eyes but all Josh sees is the blue hoodie, the sleeves pulled over Tyler’s fists and he picks at them anxiously, he’s wearing nothing else, just a hospital gown and Josh’s blue hoodie it’s the most beautiful sight Josh thinks he’s ever seen. 

“Hey.” Josh says timidly. 

“Oh, hi.” Tyler replies looking up only to look back at the hoodie sleeves.

Josh doesn’t talk about why Tyler was in the pool, instead he gets to know Tyler, and Tyler gets to know him and they’re still talking nearly half an hour later, when Kelly –smiling fondly- tells Tyler he needs to get some rest and Josh should probably get home for rest too. 

At school on Monday no one even seems to have noticed Tyler was absent for nearly the entire party, Josh however, approaches him in the halls, sees how he’s holding up. Tyler sits with Josh at lunch, Josh is different, he gets it, he sees right through the quirky loudmouthed joker routine, the mask Tyler hides behind.  
Josh is an angel, but angels don’t have blue hair and gauges. 

“Ty, when are we gonna talk about it?” Josh says from the floor of Tyler’s bedroom two months later, where he’s lay, eating skittles out of the hollow in his chest, “it makes a nice bowl” Josh had said as Tyler laughed at him, anything to make him laugh. 

“Talk about what?” Tyler isn’t really paying attention, too focused on the homework he’s desperately trying to finish so he can play endless games of Mario Kart with Josh. 

“About how you tried to drown yourself.” It’s blunt and the words hang in the air for too long, Josh wants to crawl under the bed and shrivel up and die, because this was not how it was meant to go. 

Tyler hasn’t moved, hasn’t even breathed and Josh slowly, cautiously sits up, spilling skittles all over the floor. He makes eye contact and Tyler does everything he can to swallow the sob that’s trying to rip from his throat. 

Josh is by his side immediately, strong hands are on his shoulder, his face and he closes his eyes and waits for the lips on his forcing air into his lungs but they never come. Tyler realises he wants Josh to kiss him again and another sob escapes him as he squeezes his eyes shut tighter. 

Instead he’s pulled into Josh’s chest, a hand carding through his hair. 

“It’s okay, I’m here now.” Josh says and Tyler apologises and cries and Josh says it’s okay he understands. Josh is different, he gets it, he sees right through the broken illusion of a kid who has it all that Tyler hides behind. Josh is an angel. 

Josh has soft hands and strong shoulders. 

Tyler has brown eyes and a crack in his spirit. 

They talk, in the dark, all night lay beside each other on Tyler’s bed, the moon the only light through the window, Tyler stares over Josh’s shoulder at it and wonders if it knows, knows the way his chest aches like he’s still at the bottom of the pool, still lying on that ugly dolphin mosaic whenever he thinks about how Josh is an angel, Josh is too good for him. No, he tells himself, Josh is _good for him._

“When you were in the pool y-you kissed me.” Tyler says into the silence; he hopes the darkness might soak the words right up as his fingers trace the ghosting feel of Josh’s lips pressed firmly against his. 

“You needed oxygen.” Josh shrugs, but he does so for Tyler’s benefit and both know it’s not that simple anymore. 

Tyler shifts closer in the dark, until he feels Josh’s breath on his cheek, until their noses are rubbing. 

“Help me.” He whispers, his hand twisting into Josh’s blue curls. “I can’t breathe.” 

Josh closes the gap, his lips softer, working slowly and Tyler can respond again without him pulling away, shuffling impossibly closer and leaching Josh’s heat. Legs intertwine and Tyler’s not sinking, he’s floating, up up up to the surface and when Josh finally pulls away, he breathes the first breathe of his new life. 

Tyler died in that pool, everything after that was purgatory, but now, now with Josh’s warm hands on the small of his back, with Josh’s lips gently kissing his eyelids, his nose, his temples, making him bubble with laughter and spill over with joy, Tyler is in a Heaven and Josh, Josh is an angel. 

Josh is all Tyler’s, and Tyler doesn’t need to drown to get rid of the voices, he just needs Josh to smile and kiss him breathless instead.


End file.
